ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIC HAS explained why he kicked Seamus Coleman in the head during Manchester United’s draw at Everton yesterday, insisting it wasn’t a deliberate incident.
The 35-year-old scored the visitors’ goal at Goodison Park with a brilliant first-half lob, but was frustrated when Leighton Baines claimed a point for Ronald Koeman’s side with a penalty one minute from time.
The match also saw Ibrahimovic involved in a heavy challenge with Everton defender Coleman — who later had to be substituted — and his foot made contact with the Republic of Ireland international’s head in the aftermath.
But Ibrahimovic has stressed there was no intent in what was a hard-fought battle on Merseyside, with the prospect of a retrospective ban looming large should the FA deem otherwise.
“They played hard and I heard one of the commentators say I kicked someone in the head on purpose,” Ibrahimovic told MUTV. “It was a 50/50 duel. He pulled me down and I tried to avoid touching him.”
The draw means United have only won two of their past 11 Premier League matches, a run Ibrahimovic knows is unacceptable if the club are to challenge for the title — or even make the top four.
“It was very disappointing obviously, because the last couple of games in the league have not had the outcome that we wanted, especially after a good performance,” added the striker.
“We controlled the game — not 100%, but most of it — and I think we did good until 70 minutes. Then I think we were not playing our normal game, we lost confidence and we lost the two points.
“The positive is we didn’t lose the match. That’s the positive. We know we need to win. You want to reach the Champions League and win the competition [the league title] and you need to get three points to do that. I would be more confident if we were higher up in the table because that’s what we play for.”
That is a huge shame. I think anyone with an interest in Irish boxing would have thought he was one of our hopes for an Olympic medal.
Unfortunately if there is a hint of corruption it’s nothing new in boxing. It can have predetermined outcomes as bad as wwe sometimes.
Agreed, he demolished Kenny Egan a few months ago and we had high hopes for him, he still very young though and the lad will come good .
There was always a danger of this.
We saw what happened in Beijing with K Egan against the Chinese opponent. If the UEFA boys are taking backhanders the boxing boys are certainly taking them. Fighting a Turkish fighter in Turkey was always going to be a massive ask as a result. It’s a real pity but he’s young enough to come back for the next Olympics.
Boxing is becoming a farce though with the blatant fixing of fights.
Corruption is so widespread in Turkish sport it even has it’s own Wikipedia entry http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Turkish_sports_corruption_scandal#section_1 And there are few “sports” as corrupt as boxing, there have been numerous examples in the past year alone. So whoever thought it a good idea to hold a boxing tournament in Turkey must’ve been a little on the slow side.
Im betting the judges were Turks as well knowing the ebu
The referee was from Kazakhstan, and the ringside judges from the Philippines, China, Italy, Algeria and Croatia.
Gutted…! Chin up Ward, long career ahead of you yet!
He’s used to hearing chin down :)
Boxing scoring is becoming like Eurovision voting.
And I made a spelling mistake great :O Your’s* don’t I look silly :L
Katie Taylor has one final chance to qualify for the Olympics but its in china probably against a Chinese girl so don’t rule out two of our best medal chances not even being at the games.
Cheers Niall :) and the mighty Joe will be back he’ll put every man he meets on the canvas from now on! That’ll leave no doubt about it!
Off the boxing topic, but it is incredibly annoying when you put some quotes in blue boxes and others not. Make up your mind! Plus if you use quotation marks they go at the beginning and end of a quote. You’re sincerely a stressed out leaving cert English student who struggles to correct all his own grammar etc. as well as the Journal’s! :) rant over.
Thanks Rob, nice to get some feedback on the quote boxes. Didn’t realise they were so off-putting.
As for the quotation marks — if the quote in question continues on over a few paragraphs, it’s accepted style not to use the close marks at the end of every paragraph, just at the end of the entire quote. Although I wouldn’t start doing that for the Leaving Cert, it’ll probably just stress you out even more!
Good luck with the exams.
Yeah@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get a life
Any word on how the protest went?
Gutted for Ward, such a talent.